


The Snares of Love

by fiacresgirl



Series: Summer of Sorrow [8]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Baby Mama Drama, Coping, F/M, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7774867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiacresgirl/pseuds/fiacresgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity's pregnancy hits a snag, and Oliver needs help with a personal problem. (Set after season 4.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Snares of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katienat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katienat/gifts).



> This chapter is for [Katienat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Katienat/pseuds/Katienat) who's been enjoying Oliver and Felicity's journey. Thanks for the encouragement!

The harsh light of the sun beats through the window, but the room itself is cold and sterile. Felicity sits up on the examining table and repositions the paper cloth the nurse gave her for privacy - as if privacy is something one can maintain while a medical professional is examining one’s cervix.

“It looks fine,” Dr. Murphy tells her, “There’s no fresh blood, and, of course, we heard the baby’s heartbeat on the doppler. Spotting is common during the first trimester. I would try not to worry too much about it.”

Felicity makes an effort to let out the breath she’s holding slowly. She pushes the air out from her abdomen and tries not to snap at this woman. Normally she likes Dr. Murphy a lot, but it’s a little hard not to worry about your pregnancy when you find blood in your underpants the first thing in the morning. “Do you know what could cause bleeding like this?” she asks.

The doctor rolls her examining stool away from Felicity and removes her gloves. “There are a number of possibilities,” she said, “but it’s most likely that you irritated the tissue around the cervix.”

Felicity is confused for a second. Then she gets it. “You mean like with sex?” A series of horrifying thoughts pass through her mind: having sex could cause her to miscarry and _sex might be off the table for now_.

Sex needs to stay on the table, or she is going to go mad like Mr. Rochester’s wife. The loft doesn’t even have an attic for Oliver to shove her in.

“Sex is perfectly fine during pregnancy for most women,” Dr. Murphy says reassuringly, “but the blood vessels in the tissue around the cervix become enlarged and friable, and sometimes contact with a speculum or…” She raises her eyebrows.

“A penis?” Felicity says.

Dr. Murphy smiles. “Or a penis can bruise or break them. Increased libido is also another symptom of pregnancy. It’s normal to want sex and to have it.”

Felicity thinks hard. “Does it have to be Hallmark Hall of Fame sex?”

“Hallmark Hall of Fame?” Dr. Murphy asks.

“You know, candles and soft kisses, romantic soundtrack. Very PG,” Felicity says. “Or R, I suppose.”

Dr. Murphy laughs. “Don’t swing from the chandelier,” she says, “but regular sex is fine. Orgasms aren’t going to push the baby out of your uterus.”

Felicity sighs in relief, and then she lets herself ask _that_ question. “Is it weird that I’m worried now when I only decided to have the baby just a little while ago? I didn’t even think I wanted it at first.”

Dr. Murphy scoots her stool over to the retractable table and begins typing on her laptop. “Having a baby is a big change for a woman, and it’s normal to feel ambivalent or even resentful about pregnancy sometimes. Your body will experience a lot of changes, and some of them you’ll enjoy more than others. How you feel about that is different than how you will feel about your child. Keep that in mind.” She squints at the screen. “Have you lost 3 pounds since you were here last?”

“I don’t know,” Felicity says. “I haven’t been paying that much attention.”

“At this point you should be gaining a pound or two a week,” Dr. Murphy says. “Not losing weight. Are you eating enough?”

“I eat,” Felicity says, “but I’ve been throwing up a lot, and that’s not helping my appetite.”

“Well,” Dr. Murphy says, “You’re scheduled for another appointment in a couple of weeks. We’ll do an ultrasound then, and I hope to see your weight up.” She glances at Felicity out of the corner of her eye. “Will the father also be there? You can bring him if you’d like.”

“Oliver?” Felicity asks. “I probably should. He wants to be involved. I didn’t tell him about this because I didn’t know if I should worry or not, and he definitely would if he knew I was bleeding. He’s already gone overboard with the smoothies and the prenatal vitamins.”

Felicity isn’t sure, but it looks like the doctor is relieved to hear that. She consults her chart. “Yes, I see you’ve been taking those. Good. Well, that’s it, then. Eat, sleep, and get ready for your baby’s first home movie. The nurse will give you instructions about preparing for the ultrasound.”

“Maybe I should just buy an ultrasound machine,” Felicity says. “Then I could take a peek anytime. I could donate it later to one of the free clinics in the city.”

Dr. Murphy shakes her head. “No. It’s better to keep living your life as normally as possible and try not to think about things going wrong. It’s not healthy to check all of the time on the baby. Pregnancy can be a stressful time for a woman, but you should remember that women become pregnant every day all over the world, and in the vast majority of cases, these pregnancies result in healthy babies.” She stands up and puts out her hand. “I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

Felicity shakes it. It’s cold, like the room. She waits until Dr. Murphy closes the door behind her and then she begins removing her paper gown. She glances down at her breasts when the dress is off, and she’s surprised all over again at how her nipples have transformed practically overnight into these big, dark pink nodules that have little bumps all over them. She wants her pretty boobs back - the ones that aren’t sore all of the time. She never gave permission for any of this. She feels like she should feel more maternal, like she should put on an apron, throw her hair up into a messy bun, and bake something, but she doesn’t want to do any of that. She wants to take another nap.

She pulls her black yoga pants on over her still flat stomach and then checks her underwear again subconsciously. No blood. If her body is going to hijack her life like this, then the least it can do is not bleed spontaneously on her because _that is bullshit_. She puts a hand over her tummy and presses it firmly.

 _Just stay in there, baby_ , she thinks. _Stay put. No adventures for you for 30 more weeks, okay?_

She has no bargaining chips and the baby can’t talk, of course, so she has to pretend that deal has been made and shaken on. Otherwise, there’s attic real estate in her future for sure.

  


>>\--->

  


Felicity parks her car next to Oliver’s motorcycle in the last space left in the lot and hauls herself up all six flights of stairs to the Diggles’ apartment. The elevator in the building is on the fritz _again_. She can’t believe she was running up and down these stairs just a handful of weeks ago. Today they feel like a mountain. A mountain in some incredibly hot place. When she gets to her door, she leans on the frame to catch her breath for a moment, and through the door she hears voices. Not Sara’s, though - adult voices. She leans closer.

“You need to talk to her about this,” Lyla’s voice says.

“It’s not the right time. I don’t think she’s eating enough,” Oliver says. “She’s looking thinner.”

“She’s eating,” Lyla says. “I’ve seen her, and you bring by food all the time. Tell her.”

“She looks tired,” Oliver says, “all of the time.”

“You’d look tired too if you were throwing up all night.”

“All night?” Oliver asks, his voice rising.

Felicity hears the impatience enter Lyla’s voice. “No, not _all_ night. She does get some sleep. You need to stop being such an old grandmother, Oliver. We’ll know how she’s doing when she gets back from the doctor.”

“Why is she at the doctor’s again?”

Felicity turns the doorknob and opens the door before Lyla can answer. “I’m home,” she calls, and then the smell of frying lamb hits her her like a drunk brawler right in the nose, and she covers it and her mouth. Oliver lifts his spatula from the pot on the burner and waves at her, but she jogs a straight line to the bathroom and slams the door behind herself.

She makes it to the toilet before her afternoon snack comes up to say hello again, and she thinks for the millionth time that this lack of control over what is happening to her is both frightening and awful. What if she never stops throwing up? She swallows the sour taste in her mouth, and leans her forehead against the toilet seat which is - mercifully - cool.

The hexagonal tile of the bathroom floor reminds her both of Brie Larvan and H.I.V.E., and that makes her puke again, so hard this time that the muscles in her abdomen ache afterwards.

“Felicity?” Oliver calls through the door.

She’d answer him, but she’s busy. She hears the door open and then the water in the sink running. He lifts up the hair on her neck and puts a cool washcloth there instead. She closes her eyes. She’s so sweaty. She feels disgusting.

“Done?” he asks. He runs the tips of his fingers up and down her back.

She thinks about it. “Okay,” she finally says. He hauls her up and all but carries her out of the bathroom and over to the couch. He sits in one corner and pulls her feet into his lap. She concentrates on not smelling the cooking lamb or anything else, and when that doesn’t work, she presses her face into the couch fabric and inhales. That smells like Scotchgard and polyester filling which is relatively safe.

Sara wanders up and pats her on the arm. “An Fliss feel bad?” Sara pushes something into her hand and Felicity opens an eye to see that it’s Sara’s little zebra, Reo. She tries for a smile.

“It’ll pass,” Felicity says and pats the space next to her. Sara crawls up on the couch and tucks her head into Felicity’s neck. Her face is sticky.

“Kiss, kiss,” Sara says. “Make it better.”

“I don’t think so, Squirt,” Oliver says, “but give it to her anyway.”

Sara looks confused, but she gives Felicity a sloppy kiss, more tongue than lips, and then hops down again. Lyla comes over with a tall glass. She sets it down on a coaster on the mission-style coffee table. “Oliver’s replenished our supply of smoothies,” she says. “When your stomach settles, drink this.”

“There’s dinner too,” Oliver says, looking hopeful. “Dirty rice with lamb.”

He’s been making one-dish meals lately so that she can’t avoid certain levels of the food pyramid, and she alternates between finding this very sweet and finding it incredibly annoying. She knows if she takes one more step toward the kitchen, let alone takes a bite of that dirty rice, she’ll be back in the bathroom, so she picks up the smoothie and takes a tiny sip. “Thanks.”

Lyla sits down in the chair across from the couch. “What did the doctor say?”

“The baby’s heartbeat is strong, and Dr. Murphy doesn’t think that the bleeding is anything to worry about,” Felicity says.

Oliver stiffens at the mention of blood. “You’ve been bleeding?”

“Just a little, but apparently that’s normal or can be,” Felicity says. “Although I got the feeling that if it wasn’t normal there isn’t much they could do about it anyway.”

“I spotted with Sara, and you can see how that turned out,” Lyla says. “She’s fine. Healthy as a horse.”

Sara looks up from playing with her blocks. “Me hungry, Mama,” she says.

Lyla looks torn between what’s happening with Felicity and what Sara needs. “The rice is finished,” Oliver says. “You two can eat. I’ll clean up later.” So Lyla gathers up her daughter and heads for the dining room table. “We’ll talk after she’s down,” she says to Felicity.

Felicity closes her eyes and takes another sip of the smoothie. It tastes slightly different. Not worse, but different. “Did you add something to this?” she asks.

Oliver nods. “Coconut oil. For the calories and the fats. You need both. I tried it, though. It’s still good.”

“It’s still good,” she agrees. She stretches her feet out, pushing them into the couch’s other arm, and he takes one of her calves and begins kneading it gently. “So what is it Lyla thinks you should tell me?”

This time his stiffening is less obvious, but she feels the tension draw his muscles out and his fingers dig a little harder into her calf.

“I’m not sure--” Oliver says.

“Tell me,” she says. “Just tell me, Oliver. Or leave. I mean it - I don’t have the patience anymore.”

He swallows and then places his hands on his own broad thighs. “Lyla thinks I should ask your advice on what to do about Samantha.”

Samantha? She tries to think that through, but it doesn’t entirely compute. “What to do about her? Why?” she asks.

“I don’t want to let her railroad me again,” Oliver says, his hands clenching. “I’ve seen a lawyer, and she thinks I can press for my rights to William, but she doesn’t know about the vigilante stuff, of course. That’s another thing Samantha can hold over my head.”

Felicity watches as the color rises from his neck and suffuses his face. His coloring doesn’t hide much. “You’re angry,” she says.

He hits the arm of the couch with his palm. “Of course I’m angry. She kept me from my son. She lied to me and told me he was dead, and I missed out on all of those years with him.”

“Well, five of those years you were gone,” Felicity says and then realizes that’s not the point. “You deserved to know the truth, though. Do you think you’d have made a good dad?” There’s the million dollar question, although she thinks she knows the answer for the man she’s talking to now.

Oliver winces. “No,” he says slowly. “No, probably not.” He runs that same palm over his face. “Definitely not before the island. But when I came back… She should have told me!” He picks up her other calf and presses his fingers right into the spots that ache the most. “I’m also furious about what happened last fall. I wanted to tell you!”

She lets her skepticism show on her face apparently because he says, “I _did._ I wanted to tell you because then we could share this, and I was afraid I’d mess it up without you… I _knew_ I’d mess it up.”

His face. She has a hard time looking at his face, it’s so filled with frustration and regret. There are tears in his eyes. He tips his head back, and she knows it’s so his eyeballs will at least try to reabsorb their watery mess.

“How can you be the Arrow?” she blurts out.

He gives a sharp laugh as he turns to face her. “It should be funny, right? I mean, I’ve killed people for just getting in my way, and she’s got me dangling. But _what the hell_ am I supposed to do? I can’t threaten to hurt her like the Arrow would. If I even look at her funny, she’s going to take off, and I’ll never see him again. I have to do whatever she says to even see him.”

“Why are you trying to see him now?” she asks. “I thought when you made that video…”

He looks surprised. “It was you. It was what you said - that I didn’t know what or how he was doing.” He gives her a beseeching look. “I realized that while I couldn’t do anything about your decision about our baby, I could do something about the son I _already_ have. So I called Samantha.”

“You called Samantha...because of me?” she asks slowly.

He nods. “As soon as you said it, I knew you were right. I want to know him. Maybe I wouldn’t have done the right thing before, but I can now. I want him to know that his father didn’t reject him.” He presses his hand down on her thigh. “Because of what you went through with your dad - although it seems like that might be wrong too.”

Felicity shrugs. “If my father had been dying to be a part of my life, he would have found a way. Seeing his daughter while on the run wouldn’t exactly have been as hard as defeating a city full of soldiers pumped up on Japanese super drugs.”

He gives her a gentle smile. “Okay, but I think Kuttler does care about you, and maybe that’s worth knowing.”

“Maybe it is,” she says, but she can’t quite manage a smile.

“Anyway, I blew everything up so that I could get to know William, and then I sent him away,” he says. “I know some of it was the danger, but some of it was that I didn’t know if I’m up to it. I kind of hate her right now.”

“Samantha?” Felicity asks. He nods. “I’m not a very big fan of hers either,” she says and then makes a decision. “But I can probably see the situation more clearly than you can.”

His eyes widen, and the blue intensifies as he gets that look, the one that tells her how he sees her. “You’ll…?”

“I’ll help,” she says. “If you want, I’ll even go along with you on your trip. I don’t want you to lose William. I never wanted that.”

He touches her hair. “You don’t hate him?”

She’s taken aback. Does he think that? “How could I hate him?” she asks. “He’s your son. I expect he’s kind of amazing.”

“Amazing?” His face is doing that thing again, and she wonders what kind of iron control he must have been asserting for the first two years she knew him. He has no face for poker anymore, at least not with her.

“I’ve always thought so,” she says. “Look at you: savior of Star City, day and night. And expert smoothie maker. I’m the one who’s the wreck now. That’s probably why this baby wants to bail on me.” She tries to laugh but it comes out more like a cough and she tastes the bile in her throat again.

Oliver leans over and puts his head on Felicity’s stomach. “The doctor told you it’s probably fine?”

She nods. “There’s an ultrasound scheduled in a couple weeks. Do you want to come along for that appointment?”

He cups her flat stomach and nods. “I do,” he says, his voice open and happy. “I’m going to do it right this time. I swear. Not just for the baby, but for you too.” He looks up at her with pleading eyes. “You have to know I wouldn’t send you away. How could I do that, Felicity? I’d have to go away too.”

She feels the tiny needles of his stubble through the thin fabric of her skirt. “I have to do whatever she wants,” he mumbles against her. “And I don’t know how I can do that. I don’t know how.”

Felicity thinks of Samantha’s pretty face, her dark eyes and the conciliatory smile she offered in the bunker when she tried to smooth over what she’d done to Oliver. Felicity slides her hand through Oliver’s hair - that messy hair that goes every which way when left too long to its own devices. “Leave Samantha to me,” she says, digging her fingers into his scalp. “You leave her to me.”


End file.
